DJI Mini 2 SE, Lightweight Mini Drone with QHD Video, 10km Max Video Transmission, 31-Min Flight Time, Under 249 g, Auto Return to Home, 3-Axis Gimbal Drone with Camera for Beginners

I concur that DJI makes great drones at many price points, and for many skill levels. Every one of the dozens of articles I read before purchase had DJI at the top of the recommended list. My only problem was deciding which drone to buy as a novice. I didn’t want to buy a >$1K package and have the drone fly off into the sunset, never to be seen again, on my first flight. So, I split the difference on risk vs. cost/performance. I bought a DJI, but not the newest model. The better, but still very similar, model 4 would have cost more than twice as much for a similar package as this model 2. I’m happy to report that this drone is a great choice for adult beginners. It does not have the collision avoidance or 4k camera of the newest model, but it is essentially the same for basic setup and flight control and its camera performance is adequate. It really is a very nice drone, and I’m very happy I bought the DJI. It is relatively easy to set up and very easy to learn to fly. I really like the Mini2 SE and I’m glad I bought it. One thing I didn’t know about drones before researching is that all drones above 250 grams must be registered with the FAA, and some drones must initialize a flight approval each time they are used. So, if you buy a drone that weighs over 250 grams, be sure you understand what you are buying. It’s one thing to have to pay $5 and register once online, it’s another to have to be within cellphone signal range to initialize flight. With the latter type you could be miles into a hike and not be able to use your drone at all due to no cell signal for flight authorization. The DJI Mini 2 SE is not either of those. Two things you will need, which are not included in this kit, are a charger plug adapter and a mini SD type memory card. It’s absolutely ridiculous that a $500 package, that includes everything else, does not include the plug adapter. DJI’s >$1K packages don’t either. You need an 18 Watt or greater plug, such as the newer Apple devices use. Yes, most of us already have one, but that’s not the point. DJI should just charge $5 more and include one in the kit! The memory card isn’t technically necessary but the images and video will be much higher quality if you use one. The DJI Mini 2 SE supports up to a 256 gigabyte card. A high quality name brand card is only ~$25 and a 128 gigabyte is half that. If DJI had included the SD card and charger plug, they would have only had to increase the price of this package by less than $20, and the customer would not have to scramble around trying to source missing pieces of the appropriate parameters. Another issue is the formatting of the SD card… It needs to be formatted in the drone itself but I never found any mention of this in DJI’s instructions. Query YouTube for a quick tutorial, it’s less than a 30 second process once someone walks you through the appropriate menus on the controller app. In summary, I have no real complaints just suggestions, this is a great drone made by the leader in this market segment. It’s high quality, easy to fly and many of the parts are interchangeable with prior and current models. Its basic flight capability is very comparable to the more expensive DJI models, but it is edged out by them on camera resolution and advanced features like object avoidance, but it costs significantly less. If price is not a concern, I’d recommend the Mini 4 unconditionally, it is better. However, the Mini 2 is also an excellent choice and I’m glad I chose it for my first drone. I may upgrade at some point in a few years, once I have a lot more experience, but I’m completely satisfied with this drone and would recommend it or buy it again in the same circumstances.

I have one question—how on earth is this thing less than four hundred dollars?! This is one of the best purchases I’ve ever made on a drone. It’s perfectly steady, and the camera is stunning. The quality of the footage is so clear and crisp, it’s almost unbelievable. And the range? It can go so far away that I can’t even fathom the distance. After receiving a terrible drone order that was a complete waste of money, I truly understood just how incredible the DJI Mini 2 SE is. It felt necessary to leave this review despite the fact that not many people might see it because the difference is night and day. This drone is leagues above anything else I’ve tried. Despite a few crashes, this drone works flawlessly and feels like it should be worth at least $1,500. The return-to-home feature is incredibly precise—literally down to the inch—and the motion sensors are spot-on as well. It's also ridiculously easy to fly, which is perfect for anyone, whether you're a beginner or an experienced pilot. The best part? You don’t even need to register it because it’s so lightweight. Plus, it’s super easy to bring into other countries. I packed this drone into a suitcase full of heavy shoes and other items for a trip from Virginia to Turkey. The suitcase was handled roughly, and the boxes inside were damaged—including the drone's box—but when I unpacked everything, the drone was completely unscathed. The build quality is just that good! Here’s something insane to think about: imagine there’s an island on the Chesapeake Bay you want to fly over. It’s 7 km away, and this drone has a 10 km range without any signal extenders. But here’s the catch—your drone isn’t fully charged. You figure it’s fine and put the drone in sport mode to help it get there faster. But you completely underestimate how long the charge will last (which, by the way, is super long with this amazing piece of tech). When you’re 4 km out, the drone warns you that it doesn’t have enough charge to go much further and return safely. If you don’t listen, it’ll automatically turn back on its own. It’s like this drone is designed to be unbreakable and impossible to lose! Oh, and did I mention it can even handle CRAZY winds? This thing is a total beast. Last thing: I recommend buying an extra 2 chargers and charging station. Instead of getting 31 mins of flight time, you can get 1.5 hours of it with three batteries. It makes a big difference. Long story short, if you’re on the fence, don’t be. Just buy it—you won’t regret it.

I’ve had a drone that was cheap and had a camera but wasn’t great. So I did research and purchased this drone. It’s an amazing value for the money considering how many features the DJI drones have, from the cheapest to the most expensive. This $300 drone exceeded my expectations watching videos on YouTube and even more in person. It’s very easy to setup and use. The battery in the controller lasts a super long time, the battery on the drone lasts for about 20+ minutes before you need to return. It can run up to 30 minutes but you’re pushing its limits. It’s got amazing build quality, from the drone itself to the controller. That’s what you get when you buy DJI. It handles wind well despite it being so lightweight. The gimbal is so smooth and keeps everything upright and leveled while in flight. It takes 4K quality pictures and 2.7K video. I’ve taken it very high up in the sky and it keeps an amazing signal as well as the gimbal stabilizing the footage or images. It’s so sophisticated for the price it blows me away. I’ve shown it to several people and they’re surprised how advanced it is for the price, everyone loves it. Great DJI drone, I can only imagine how good the other ones are when this is supposed to be beginner level.

This has been one of the most satisfying things I've ever bought. I had no idea what I was doing at first, but managed to get acquainted with it pretty easily with no crashes so far after about a month of almost daily flights. The video quality is "only" 2.7K, but it's been more than enough for me to get some still-gorgeous videos and pictures of my rural neighborhood. Be sure you use one of the approved micro SD cards though, or you'll have problems, as I discovered. At first I was trying to fly it without turning off my phone's wifi and bluetooth, and was having all kinds of interference problems. I was actually thinking about returning it, but this was only due to my ineptness and not reading the manual carefully. Now I just put my iphone on airplane mode and all is well. It only needed internet for the first flight to register the drone. The battery is a little tricky to remove as there isn't much to grab on to, and it fits snugly. There's a risk of it popping out abruptly if you're not careful. Also, be careful removing the gimbal protector. I was pulling the wrong direction initially and it popped off in a sudden way that I thought I might have destroyed the gimbal and wrecked my drone, but it turned out I was lucky and didn't damage anything. The battery fast charges quite quickly in the drone if you use a good USB-C charger. I ended up buying the dji charging hub and a couple more of the intelligent flight batteries, even though the flight time is quite impressive on a fully charged battery. Sometimes I want to fly for more than 20-30 minutes. Super impressed with the quality. It feels somewhat fragile only because it's so light ( I weighed mine and it was 240g), but it's really quite sturdy and well-made, with care. I have seen occasional graphics glitches on the picture streamed to my phone, but they're very minor and in no way effect the perfect video recorded to the SD card and don't threaten control of the drone. They're easy to clear by just turning the drone or the gimbal a little and don't happen often. My experience with this drone has been so positive, I'm considering getting a mini 3.

Just got my hands on the DJI Mini 2 SE drone, and let me tell you, it's a game-changer! This little guy is small enough to fit in a small compartment of a backpack, but it's got some serious skills up its sleeve. I have tried several other types of drones with limited success. This drone changed all that! First off, the camera quality is really good. I'm certainly no pro photographer, but the shots I've been getting are pretty impressive. The 12MP sensor captures every detail, and the 3-axis gimbal keeps things steady, even when the wind is acting up. Speaking of wind, I was very surprised at how stable the drone and the camera shots are event in windy conditions. Compared to other drones that I have used, this one is easy to set up, and easy to get in the air without a lot of steps. The DJI Fly app is easy to navigate and you don't have to worry about a million setting to change to get in the air, or even while flying. Battery life is solid too. The battery says that it will last up to 31 minutes, which is better than most of the drones that I have seen. I actually get about 23-25 minutes on each charge, but I do tend to do a lot of maneuvering which limits battery time. The app has a nice feature where it will give you an estimated flight time remaining based on height and distance of the drone. I have successfully flown the drone several miles from my location and was able to still get crisp clear video. Now, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. One thing I wish it had is obstacle avoidance sensors. I've had a couple of close calls with trees, and it would be nice to have that extra layer of protection, especially for us newbie pilots. Overall, though, I'm seriously impressed with the DJI Mini 2 SE. It's perfect for anyone looking to up their aerial photography game without breaking the bank. With a few tweaks here and there, it could easily become the go-to drone for adventurers everywhere!

I bought this in February, owned it for almost half a year of occasionally using it for Ariel pictures of my property, I was taking it out on a normal windless sunny day and it literally fell out of the sky at 200 feet up which of course broke it. I immediately contacted dji and sent in the drone and all the parts, they investigated and told me "the batteries i used were outdated and caused the failure so the repair fee is on me." The brand new batteries i bought with the drone were apparently outdated and caused catastrophic failure and they won't even fix it. I mean what a pathetic cop out of taking responsibility for your product. I now have to flip the bill on nearly a couple hundred dollar repair because their product failed in a way they are choosing not to take responsibility for. When it worked out was awesome. But this incredibly stupid unfair response to their product failing so quickly is why you shouldn't buy. If it happens to you, they WILL tell you to pound sand.

I love this device. It has consumed my free hours with research and just watching drone videos. What started as an endeavor for roofs for work has now turned into a little bit of a hobby now. To preface, I bought a holy stone first since it was cheaper and came with a bunch of extra stuff, DO NOT GO FOR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. While the device was cool, it would randomly take off on me and the battery didn’t last near what they advertised it as. Spend the extra money because you get what you pay for. I returned it and bought the mini se 2 and with the extra batteries, bag, and charging dock, it was about $200 difference from the holy stone but again, you get what you pay for. Right out of the gate the device was smooth, easy to handle, and the app was much more user friendly and robust. I spent my first flight just digging into the app which had everything from no fly zones, to points of interest nearby to fly your drone to, to areas to be careful with due to weaker gps. Even with weak gps areas, this thing flew super smooth even in the wind. I know this is long, but I want to add my only gripe. For this being a beginner drone, I really wish it would have obstacle sensors, my second flight I flew it into a tree by accident and there was nothing I could do to get it out and I tried it all. I ended up paying an arborist $300 to retrieve it from the tree for me and that extra $300 could’ve easily gotten a better DJI model that would’ve had obstacle sensors on it which could’ve avoided that mishap all together. The irony is not lost on me… Speed is great and the difference in modes is great when you want to smoothly cruise for photos. I would not recommend this for a kid under 15 unless he genuinely has an interest in drone flight and is responsible because it would not take much to completely destroy something like this. That being said, this is definitely cheaper than their other models so this is the one to get for someone younger due to the cost being much less. Performance is beautiful as is the design of the drone. Range I would say so far I have flown it to the point to where I can’t see it anymore and it never lost latency or anything. I’ll be honest, the first time you fly it that high can freak you out but these things are built extremely well and it will not freak out out on you. Also, one of my favorite things is how compact it is. Carrying around that sling will inadvertently make you feel cool, like you’re about to unleash a little war beast. Anyway, review over. I hope this helps someone.

quality on a budget is how i would describe this drone. good flight time and the camera is good enough for what i use it for, mostly property shots. the connectivity is pretty good, battery life is reasonable. my only concern is when its airborne its sometimes hard to see it because of the color against the sky. but thats something i can address with some after market wraps on amazon. really easy to handle and capable, does not have obstacle avoidance at this price point but you get what you pay for.